130M women uneducated due to ‘wrong’ gender?

Educational resources are unequally distributed, favoring wealthy, white, able-bodied, cisgender, males. Thus, one hundred thirty million (130M) females are uneducated for having the wrong gender. And that’s the truth in this present age, whether you like it or not.

We’ve been told lies all our life. The authorities deny that we have to implement broader structural changes in order to achieve social justice.

Reproducing a faulty “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality, it suggests that if someone struggles in adulthood, it must be their fault for not taking their education seriously. Their struggles could never be the result of oppressive social, political, and economic structures.

Meanwhile, people from low-income backgrounds, People of Color, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ people continue to struggle to access the same tools for academic and professional advancement.

In many places on earth, gender is one of the biggest reasons why children are denied an education. Despite advances in girls’ education in recent years, an entire generation of young women has been left behind. There are more than 130 million young women around the world that are currently not enrolled in school.

Although there is still prejudice against women in many developed countries, marrying later on once your career is established is considered normal. In the developing world, one in three girls marries before the age of 18, and it would be unusual for them to stay in school once they are married.

Gender inequality is very closely linked to financial independence

The benefit of keeping girls in school to both themselves and their families has been proven time and again, but in poverty-stricken communities, many families are forced to choose which of their children to send to school.

In these same communities the belief is that there is more value in educating a boy than a girl, and if a choice had to be made, the girls would miss out.

Instead of being regarded as of equal value and being educated, they are married off, sent to work or made to stay at home to look after younger siblings and work on household chores. Embarrassment or inadequate toilet facilities at their school to manage their period in privacy and with dignity, and appropriate menstrual hygiene education also play a role in girls’ missing days of school.

In every western country banking systems are commonplace, and equally available to both men and women. In Asia and Africa uneducated rural women especially lack access to any traditional banking solutions, in fact, 42% of women globally still lack access to banking services.

Women are 30 percent less likely than men to have an individual financial account in countries having a humanitarian crisis. This leaves uneducated women unable to receive and save the grants and they are totally dependent on their husbands.

Transformative tool for the uneducated

Blockchain technology is a powerful transformative tool for empowering the economic lives of women across the globe.

With blockchain and the low costs associated with maintaining a wallet account, women could become self-sovereign and use blockchain to provide a secure ID, access to legal contracts, secure transactions and banking infrastructure.

Blockchain payments are able to be made via SMS, allowing instant access to financial services without the dependence of Wi-fi and smartphones. Coupled with a local economy driven by a community currency, this could eliminate, or at least substantially reduce, financial dependence and allow women to contribute to an economic future for their families.

UN Sustainable Development Goal #5 of Gender Equality by 2030 can be assisted using Blockchain smart contracts to target donor resources directly to women using blockchain private keys as an identity for women.

On the flip side of an initiative like this, blockchain groups or decentralized token communities would be able to connect and allow members to determine causes worth supporting and to what extent they can help.

Self-sovereignty is owning your personal and official Records

In many countries, women are often unable to obtain official identification due to a lack of official documents such as a birth certificate or a passport. This is commonplace in societies where male relatives are used to holding their IDs. The lack of proper identification documents is a large contributing factor to gender inequality, as it restricts financial freedom.

Blockchain technology has the ability to liberate women from these financial gender disparity. Blockchain’s capacity to file personal records in a safe and cost-efficient manner provides women a personal digital identification accessible to them when they need it without a third party consent.

But how about uneducated women – will they even know that they have these rights?

The ownership of a digital identity could allow women to own land and bank accounts in a country, and yes, be educated.

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About The Author

Mitch Rankin is the Co-Founder and CEO of English Forward, the internets largest learn English Q&A and Community website, having served over 250+ million people. He is a family man, investor, and property professional, investing and working with development teams on mixed-use, commercial and hospitality property projects globally. He has a passion for education and blockchain, with his focus area on helping improve global communications through the EnglishForward.com platform.